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I haven’t been able to write since Tuesday. On Wednesday my daughter and granddaughter arrived for a short break during Eryn’s first half-term holiday since going to full-time school.

On Thursday we took her to a theatre in a town an hour’s drive away.

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The morning programme for children was called Clownderella. It was a one-man show that lasted about an hour in an intimate little studio alongside the main auditorium. Eryn is very nervous about anything unfamiliar and wouldn’t sit at the front with the other children on the duvets and cushions set out especially for them. She wanted to sit at the back between her mother and me, but she soon lost her inhibitions.

The performance began with some clowning around, and Eryn began laughing and joining in, just like the other children. A second character was a mouse that squeaked in the clown’s pocket. He was looking for his friend, the cat.

We were soon introduced to Krazy Kat Theatre Company, when Cinderella’s dustpan was ingeniously turned into a cat’s face and was given a long furry tail. All the performances of this group are accompanied by signing and the clown gave us some lessons. Actually Eryn’ school teaches signing so this is something she is going to grow up with. While the clown taught us to sign ‘good morning’ and ‘thank you’, later Eryn showed us ‘good afternoon’ as well.

Next came some practice clapping and a lesson on being an audience; then we were into the Cinderella story. All the props were in a baby’s old fashioned pram (which the children called a buggy). The clown fixed up some clothes props at each end of it with a clothes-line between them, so he could set the scenes by hanging up large garments decorated to show the room he was in. The pram was pushed to the left for the kitchen, the right for the living room, and the centre for the palace ballroom. The clown could bend down and turn on music from a CD player in the shopping tray underneath the pram.

The rest of the characters in the story were puppets he carried around or hung up on convenient hooks. Cinderella, of course, was the first, and the story began when she was a baby in the pram. Later came the ugly sisters, the first was an ugly old boot – he pulled a boot out of the pram and the puppet was pushed up out of it. The second was real old bag – he pulled out a handbag, undid the clip and the front of it fell down to reveal the puppet.

The fairy godmother and her little fairy minions were winged puppets on sticks. She transformed Cinderella in a flash by telling the clown to push her through a magic ring of tissue paper and she came out covered in a colourful ball dress. Her glass slippers were then added by hand.

Finally the prince was introduced and he and Cinders danced the night away. The clown became a clock that struck twelve by putting on a clock face collar that stood up around his head and a pair of spectacle frames with the clock hands attached to the middle and pointing up to the twelve. And we all had to sign the clock striking the midnight hour.

So Cinderella ran off and her lost slipper was found by the prince. When he turned up at the house of the three sisters, he went through he farce of trying the slipper on the old boot and the old bag. As he was about to leave disappointed, the little mouse alerted him to Cinders, who had been banished to the kitchen, of course. And all the children cheered as they got married and lived happily ever after.

It was delightful performance, very cleverly done. But the best thing for Julie and I was watching Eryn and the other children, who were all entranced and completely involved for a whole hour. At the end, we met the clown sitting by the exit with Cinderella. He said thank you to Eryn for bringing her teddy to see the show, and we were able to thank him for such an entertaining morning.